


Inspector, Sergeant

by dracofiend



Category: Lewis (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-31
Updated: 2012-08-31
Packaged: 2017-11-13 09:46:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/502146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dracofiend/pseuds/dracofiend
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Theirs is a dialogue of comfort against tribulation, and this is how they work.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Inspector, Sergeant

**Author's Note:**

> A sequel to [Quick As You Like](http://archiveofourown.org/works/430645). For the Lewis Challenge, August 2012. Many thanks to [](http://witch9spring.livejournal.com/profile)[**witch9spring**](http://witch9spring.livejournal.com/) for the Britpick and beta!

James gazes into the depths of his self-assembled wardrobe (the Aspelund, in white, a profusion of extra bits and bobs and inexplicable assembly instructions shoved in a corner somewhere) and reaches for a cream-colored suit. His hand pauses on the sleeve, and he half-smiles, remembering Lewis’ animated commentary during the film last night ("See, there’s a haymaker—that’s a proper punch."). If he could only count the times Lewis has surprised him—with a joke, an unexpected bit of knowledge, a scarcely-to-be-believed willingness to ‘carry on’ with James—James purses his mouth, and frowns.

He plucks his most sombre suit from the rack (black, funeral-cut), and from the far end of the closet, a crisp white shirt. For the next twelve, or fourteen, or God forbid more, hours, he’s DS Hathaway. It won't kill him to remember it. Probably.

Except it nearly does, when Lewis walks through the open door to their office. James looks up from the evidence log he's updating and Lewis is there, just the same as usual in charcoal-grey. He nods at James, and his mouth curves up at one side in a half-cocked smile.

James' heart jumps. By the amusement in Lewis' face, James suspects his nostrils must've flared or something equivalently reactionary.

"Morning, sir," James tries, pushing his eyes back to his screen as Lewis goes to his desk.

“Morning,” Lewis replies, and James can’t help but raise his head; Lewis almost sings it.

“Good weekend?” James asks it against his better judgement. Lewis doesn’t bat an eye.

“Oh, best in years,” Lewis says breezily, making ‘years’ sound like ‘yurs.’

James wants to die. He can’t match his face to his feeling—he shouldn’t, mustn’t.

It’s only 8:04 am.

“So where are we on that hair sample from the Matthesen inquiry?” Lewis asks, paging through some papers in his in-tray. “I thought we sent that over to be tested a week ago?”

James’ mind immediately snaps to attention. “I’ll give them a prod,” he says, and reaches for the phone.

By half-two, James is ready to smoke an entire packet of cigarettes in one go. After making calls all morning (to the lab about that hair, the techies about security footage on an unrelated inquiry, the Mounted Branch of the Met on yet another unrelated matter, and a handful of others that had required immediate attention) he'd turned to court documents, records of low-value road traffic accidents. He's on the hunt for anything to do with an Andrew Pickering, a.k.a. Andrew Pinkerton, a.k.a. Nelson Hoyt, and he’s in the midst of his second box of Court Proceedings Pack Form Part A and B and its ilk, when Lewis re-appears from a session with the muckety-mucks.

"How was the meeting?" James says, without pausing in his search. He gets no response beyond a short sigh and the shuffle of Lewis’ shoes. "Mm. Productive, then." He looks up, fingers holding his place in the file.

"I don't see the bloody point of going to those bloody allocation meetings," Lewis grumbles, going to his desk and dropping his notepad with a _fwump._ "They never seem to allocate much of anything, and certainly never to me."

"You're humouring your boss," James answers, flipping open a page. "We all have to do it from time to time." He can sense Lewis' raised-brow eye on him, and he feels his lip quirk. "Besides, the committee allocated me to you, didn't they?" No joy here; James shuts the folder and slots it back in the box, and glances up.

Lewis’ expression is one of undiluted _give over_. “Even a broken clock is right twice a day.” He hunches forward and begins tapping at the keyboard in his methodical manner. James allows himself a slight smile and bends his head back to work, until Lewis asks, "Have you eaten yet?"

James shakes his head, then adds, "Not yet," when the none-too-swift tapping continues. Lewis is scrutinizing his keyboard--he hits one key, then a second, then examines the screen, frowning.

"Right then,” Lewis says when the frown has cleared away. “Lunchtime, eh?”

James watches Lewis push back his chair, and a fluttering sets off in the depth of his belly. He marks his place in the records with a sticky note and rises. A thousand times they've done this; a thousand times he's followed Lewis through the office door, walked with him down the fluorescent-lit corridor, their jackets brushing. James thinks of reaching forward, pulling himself close to Lewis and his mouth to Lewis' neck, where it hides intermittently beneath the soft ends of hair or the rumpled edge of a collar. Never before has he seriously considered acting on this familiar compulsion, but without the untenable risk of Lewis’ permanent censure, James can’t stop his mind from playing out the sequence of events if he were to do it here, just as they round the corner, or here, just as they pass a cluster of vacant cubicles. It quickens his breath, the feasibility of this fantasy. His mind is littered with innumerable others, and their crowding of James’ higher-planed thoughts is growing increasingly aggressive.

Two packets, James thinks, automatically following Lewis through the station in the direction of the canteen. I could do with two packets of smokes about now, James tells himself.

“It’s me lucky day,” Lewis says, turning to James with a smile. They’ve arrived at the back end of a sparse canteen queue. “Lentil soup’s on. They never have it Mondays.” Lewis tilts his head at the menu print-out taped on the wall near the trays.

James takes the tray Lewis hands him, and finds that, for the moment, this is all he needs.

***

James is very, very good for the remainder of the day. He steels his mind to his duties and finds the Pickering file, and it turns out their man was involved in a minor collision in 1997 with the brother of the victim—it’s a slim connection at best, but James follows it up and the interview yields a possible lead. He’s discussing it with Lewis when things suddenly get dicey, because Lewis looks at his watch and begins closing up shop.

“Okay,” Lewis is saying, straightening some papers. “Let’s bring him in. And let’s see the brother again. See if we can talk to them tomorrow.”

James blinks, and thinks for half a second about shutting down all his documents so he can leave with Lewis—but he’s just in the middle of typing up his notes on the Pickering interview, plus he’s at the tail-end of a couple of reports, and then he’s got to review and finalize the diary of his activities for the day. He nods and answers, “Right, will do.” Then he settles his hand back to the mouse and clicks aimlessly on a document, to re-focus his eyes. He starts to read without thinking—it’s his notes from the interview—and when he’s judged that a suitable moment has passed, he looks up briefly to say, “Night, sir. See you tomorrow.”

He flicks his eyes back to his screen too quickly to notice Lewis’ eyeroll, but he hears it in Lewis’ put-upon tone of voice. “Aye, you will.” It’s plainly fond as well, and James can’t stop his lip from curling up at the sound. “Lamb vindaloo all right?”

“Cucumber raita would make it even better,” James says, clicking at nothing in particular on his screen. He struggles not to grin, and only manages it a bit.

“Cucumber raita,” Lewis repeats. His keys give a muffled jingle as he puts his hands in his pockets and steps into James’ view. “You work too hard.”

James cocks his head and meets Lewis’ gaze over his monitor. “I learned from the best.”

Lewis makes a half-smile and turns to the open door. “Don’t stay too late,” he says over his shoulder.

James jerks his chin in acknowledgement and watches Lewis go. Then he devotes his full attention to his work, re-doubling his efforts at finishing up. It’s easy, and it’s not, because Lewis is waiting.

***

James arrives at a quarter to eight with a reasonably-priced red and an appetite that is beginning to make itself known. His hand drifts to the doorbell, then goes to the knob. It opens with a twist, and James steps through the door. Lewis is at the kitchen table, shirt cuffs rolled up, tie well-loosed, reading through his post. He looks up at the sound, and he gives James a smile.

“Home at last,” he says, setting the opened letter down.

For an instant James can only blink and not breathe—he can’t register the vindaloo warming the air, the BT logo on the face of the envelope, or any of the details DS Hathaway should note. He opens his mouth, taken off-guard.

“Ah. Yeah.” James tries to smile. He thinks his face might not go, but it’s a moot point. Lewis is up from the table and in the kitchen proper.

“Give us a hand,” Lewis says, removing the lid from a small pot sat on the hob. James watches condensation slide from the domed glass; it smells suddenly, strongly like Indian food. Quickly he moves to set the carrier bag on the table, and goes to the cabinet where the plates are kept. He brings two of them down, placing them on the counter next to the pot with a heavy clink. Lewis is raising the lid from another pot—chicken tikka, James realizes. His stomach growls its approval.

Lewis hears it, and the side of his face grins. “Knew you were hungry. You had that look. Just pop the rice in the microwave,” he adds, before James can ask any questions. James does as he’s told, transferring the plastic carton of basmati to a bowl he retrieves from over Lewis’ head, and goes to put it into the microwave oven. He punches in two minutes, then turns back, leaning his hip against the cutlery drawer and his head against a cupboard door.

Lewis is stirring the tikka, his back mostly to James, and as James looks on he finds himself folding his arms, to tuck his hands out of sight, out of harm’s way. It’s a habit now, borne of necessity, cultivated through repetition. In the folds of his shirt, James’ hands twitch. There’s no reason to do this anymore, he tells himself. His arms won’t unlock.

James steps forward. “I think you’ve stirred enough,” he says, and his hands come out, to either side of Lewis’ waist, sliding forward. Lewis’ body stiffens immediately; he’s startled. He’s warm. The curve of his stomach is warm; the placket of his shirt grazes James’ wrists. James’ chest beats hard against Lewis’ very rigid spine.

“Sir,” James says, but his mouth is to Lewis’ hair. It’s short, soft, and it’s as if James has already forgotten how it feels because he skims it with his lips, and the ridge of Lewis’ ear, and then Lewis’ face, where a sideburn would be if Lewis could grow sideburns. James feels the pounding of his head, heart, fast, and it smells like a man, a day inside the office in a jacket and tie. Lewis is twisting now, resisting—not resisting, turning about for James, and James opens and shuts his eyes in utter shock and abandon. Lewis has his mouth—James’ fingers fly to Lewis’ jaw, his neck, and James pulls him up, pushes against him with the plush of his mouth. Lewis pushes back. James cannot breathe.

It’s the edge of teeth that causes James to do it—the fine edge of Lewis’ teeth, set into James’ lower lip, more acute than the scrape of Lewis’ cheek and chin—it has James’ hands gripping Lewis’ shoulders and thrusting him aside, away from the hob, stumbling him backward toward the refrigerator, where James slides a hand behind Lewis’ head and holds it, to kiss, to press the length of Lewis’ body to the broad stainless steel. Lewis’ teeth have retracted but James does not; he dips his chin forward, insistent, vigorous, drawing Lewis into him, to regain for himself the sharp sting of those teeth. He cannot help his hands; they press into Lewis’ face, fingers stretching into hair, the tendons of his neck—until a shrill electronic bleating—the microwave oven—blasts through the air and Lewis rears back, jostling James away.

"Sorry," James recedes at once, abruptly self-conscious. "It's been awhile since..." His throat works, beyond his control.

Lewis is flushed, bringing a new vibrancy to his florid cheeks. He seems to search for words, his eyes flicking over James' face, and neck, and torso. "How long?" he finally manages.

"Er." James leans his arm and his forehead against the freezer door. It's cool, unlike Lewis, and it helps him to think. He thinks.

"Scarlett," he says to the burnished silver and Lewis' knees. "Mortmaigne." He rolls his head back up slowly, to slow the pace of his heart. Lewis is staring at him with wide clear eyes; his neck is tinged pink where James’ fingers, James’ mouth, were. James’ pulse skitters, pinching his wrists, never to settle into normal rhythm again.

"Bloody hell, that was years ago, man," Lewis murmurs. His eyebrows are astonished.

James arches one in return, still bent near to Lewis with one forearm to the fridge. "How long for you?" he asks, snidely enough. The next moment he realizes that he mightn't want the answer.

Lewis’ eyebrows fall. “Point taken,” he concedes, with a slight nod. The microwave beeps an impatient reminder. Lewis starts a bit, and moves to fetch the surely-sweating rice.

“Sir,” James says softly. Lewis pauses, glances over. James watches the rosy slope of Lewis’ cheek blur as he leans in. His mouth is quiet, and closed, and his eyes are closed, as he meets Lewis’ skin.

***

After the dinner things have been washed and dried and put away, Lewis ambles over to the couch, the dregs of his beer swishing in its bottle as he lowers himself onto one end.

“I videoed the Euro match,” Lewis says to James, who remains in the kitchen, working over the tea towel, running through possible scenarios for the remainder of the evening and their varying degrees of probability.

“Portugal versus Spain?” James asks, relinquishing the tea towel to a damp and wrinkly peace.

“Germany versus Italy,” Lewis answers, with a slight shake of his head that indicates exactly what he thinks about James’ lack of awareness of the latest developments in the world of international football. That particular surge of affection James knows so well rises in him like the sun, light and heat in his gut, torching his veins and the palms of his hands. He goes over to the couch and drops down into his usual seat beside Lewis, save for the three inches he normally reserves.

It puts him flush against the man, their thighs touching. Lewis stares at their knees for a moment, James' jutting out slightly at a slant past Lewis' own.

Lewis raises his head; James looks back with a little smile.

"Hallo, Sergeant," Lewis says, with a small smile of his own. He pauses, brings the remote control up to switch the telly on, and settles back. James sits quietly, breathing quietly through the swift tightening in his ribcage, gently in and out through the nose. An advert for SkyTV appears (Why should they need to advertise their own channel? A bad sign, James thinks distractedly) before Lewis switches over to the DVR and gets the match on.

The Spanish national anthem is just ending when James slumps carefully, sliding down to rest his head atop Lewis’ shoulder. Lewis goes unnaturally still for a moment, then relaxes.

“Is this what the kids do these days?” he asks mildly, eyes straight ahead.

“I’ve no idea,” James murmurs. And really, he hasn’t. He’s never had to initiate anything and he hasn’t a fucking clue how to go about this. He really, really wishes he had.

“You might be a bit tall,” Lewis says a minute later, shifting slightly. James quickly lifts his head but before he can straighten entirely Lewis’ hand is on his, lightly.

“Try putting your feet up,” Lewis says, nodding at the far end of the couch. His voice is low, vaguely uncertain. James glances down at his black oxfords and back up at Lewis. Then he hoists his legs up to the cushions, shoes and all, levers his body down, and tucks in slightly at the knees. His heart hammers, and his thick-edged skull seems to dig into the undefended muscle of Lewis’ left thigh.

“Better?” he asks, gazing up to Lewis’ face.

Unexpectedly, this makes Lewis laugh. His face broadens and his eyes become crescents, and his lovely teeth are white against his lips. “Yeah. Better.”

Cassano is, according to the match commentator, twisting and turning magnificently down the left, escaping from Boateng and Khedira with one marvellous twiddle, then whipping a cross over the six-yard area, when Lewis’ hand comes soundlessly to James’ shoulder, to James’ head. The stroke is tentative, at first—the purposeful pass of a hand across someone else’s hair. The next instant Balotelli powers home a header and they both jump in surprise.

When play resumes, Lewis’ hand returns to James’ hair. “Brilliant set-up, that,” Lewis remarks, petting James idly. “Beat Badstuber to the ball cleanly.”

“Most definitely,” James agrees, folding his arms over his chest and nudging himself more cosily into the crook of Lewis’ lap.

They watch until Lewis needs to get up for the loo. “I’ll pause it, shall I?” James calls after him, sitting up. Lewis says to let it go, and James does.

When Lewis returns, his face is freshly pink, as if he’d been scrubbing, and the expression there is awkward, with a slight smile.

“Anything happen?” He glances to the screen as he comes back to his seat.

“Nope,” James says, keeping perfectly still with his elbows propped along the top of the couch. His eyes, which had lighted on Lewis the moment he appeared and followed him, now swivel back to the telly. His breaths come shallowly; his heart seems to pulse just under his skin. Lewis eases himself deeper into the cushions, and the ridge of his shirt collar catches James’ outstretched arm. Instantly James’ arm curls about Lewis’ shoulder; James is leaning across, with an audible inhale. His mouth parts and closes on Lewis’ with unmistakeable intent, and James’ kiss would be rough but for the last vestiges of doubt, telling him that despite all his senses, this can’t possibly be real.

Lewis’ hands come around him, anchor to the ridges of his shoulder blades. They force James to give way as Lewis presses forward, shifting his weight until James finds himself arched back, his fingers at the still-fastened buttons on the front of Lewis’ shirt. Lewis’ jaw is not smooth and it stings on James’ face but it’s gorgeous, the push of Lewis’ tongue, the clasp of his lips, and James isn’t the one to break it off even when his rapid nostrils-only breathing begins to make him light-headed.

Lewis pulls his head back slightly and swallows, chest rising and falling under James’ working hands.

"This part feels the same," Lewis murmurs. "I think." James laughs, giddy, strung out, heart beating quickly, thinly, in the ends of his fingertips and at the tip of his tongue. His hands are avaricious, finishing off the buttons and pushing the shirt open. Lewis shrugs it off to reveal a bright white vest. James, now completely toppled back on the couch with Lewis hovering over him in no comfortable position, cocks his head.

“This is new,” James says matter-of-factly to Lewis’ vest, tracing the seams with his eyes, his palm flat against Lewis’ chest. Lewis’ heart thumps through it, into James’ hand. James’ eyes flit up.

“So?” Lewis asks. There are lines in his forehead, paper-cut fine; there are tissue-folds at his temples, and his complexion is patchy, unevenly flushed. James looks at him—he would give everything for this man. “I’m allowed new clothes, from time to time,” Lewis says.

James smiles with a soundless _ah_. “You were presuming.”

Lewis’ firm gaze drifts. “Yeah, well. Presumed right, didn’t I?” he mutters.

James stretches up to kiss him in answer, throat bobbing, fingers splayed over Lewis’ back, his chest, stroking over curves, lines that have softened, rounded with time. _Men who commit indecent acts._ James helps to pull the brand-new vest free. _Strange fits of passion have I known._ He fills up his fists with Lewis’ rumpled flesh. _Whoever yields properly to Fate._ His teeth converge in the hollow of Lewis’ neck.

James hears and feels Lewis suck in a breath. He lifts his tongue from Lewis’ skin.

“Hic sunt dracones,” he tells Lewis’ ear, softly. It’s pink. The heart in James’ chest flickers very, very fast.

“Eh?”

James shifts to look at Lewis—his hips won’t let him leave. “Here be dragons,” he says. He jerks his eyes from Lewis’ mouth, stubbled chin, to meet Lewis’ gaze.

Lewis’ head tilts back in the barest of nods. “And he speaks Latin.”

James feels his face form a fleeting smile.

“Begehrt, Herrin,” Lewis intones, looking at him intently, “was ihr wünscht.”

James blinks, can’t restrain a laugh at the satisfied glint in Lewis’ eye. “What’s that?”

“German.”

“Yeah, I know. What’s it mean?”

Lewis shrugs his snow-pale shoulders. “Dunno. It’s _Tristan und Isolde,_ though, if that gets you going.”

James wants to grin _yes_ but his face is too heavy—Lewis makes it so, with his warm and steady eyes, the faint curve to his lips. James wants to swallow but he can only just breathe. He swipes at Lewis’ trousers, wayward; his desire evades control.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Lewis mumbles.

***

When they speak next, it begins with a barely audible exhale.

“Good grief,” Lewis breathes out slowly. He’s still lying on James, in appearance much the same as when they started, less trousers and pants. Somehow, the socks survived. He isn’t dishevelled, except in the eyes.

“And all this time I thought you only wanted me for my brain,” James manages, sans the wry tone it deserves. He has shed none of his clothing, and all his reserve.

Lewis raises his head momentarily, then rests it on James’ chest against the opposite ear. “Now you know the awful truth.”

James stares at the ceiling, sees through it to the sky. _The stars, that nature hung in heaven, and filled their lamps with everlasting oil, give due light to the misled and lonely traveller._ James presses his fingers gently to the softness of Lewis’ back. It yields to the spine. Lewis’ elbows tighten around him. James works his other arm from the confines of the sofa cushions and tucks it across the dip above Lewis’ hips.

“I appreciate the honesty,” James murmurs. He means it to be flippant, but Lewis lifts his head again and gives him that look that James will never, he thinks, never quite fully believe could be meant for him.

“Anytime,” Lewis tells him, with a soft smile.

***

James sits at his desk the morning after, his eyes aglaze and his nerves firing at will. Three cups of coffee and one cigarette—he ought to have done those the other way round but Lewis still detests smoking and James has vowed to quit. The new plan forbids the pleasures of nicotine within two hours of seeing Lewis. Even if he’s on the very verge of gnawing off his own hand.

He grabs at the nearest item on his desk, to prevent this needless catastrophe, and nearly knocks over the dregs in the misshapen paper cup resting at his elbow. James blinks at the screen and clicks restlessly on the mouse. Lines of text scroll past, blurring. He lifts his fingertips, leaves them quivering slightly in the air. James starts reading at random. He hadn’t got much sleep last night.

He smiles.

James stops with the smiling (and the breathing, and the thinking, and the heart-beating) the moment Lewis’ figure flickers into being at the edge of James’ vision, just beyond the glass-paned door.

Lewis steps through, his head tilting up at the chin in his usual greeting. “Morning,” he says, shuffling to his desk.

James feels himself flushing, pressing his lips down against the grin. His hands squeeze shut. _Chk-thing_ sounds sharply from the vicinity of his desk.

“Ah. Still a staples man, I see.” Lewis nods towards it.

James glances down at the stapler that is, mysteriously, warming in his palm. “Still a staples man,” he replies. _Chk-thing._

Lewis’ shoulders rise a bit as he huffs his smile. “Guess some things never change.” His gaze lingers on James. Then he pushes wide his chair, which sighs under his weight. “Like crime,” he continues, reaching for his in-tray. “Have you turned up anything in the phone records of our friend Peter Brookmont?”

James breathes in; he is full, and whole, and calm. “Unfortunately, no. But he was seen by a neighbour leaving the victim’s home prior to when we believe the attack occurred, round eleven a.m.”

“Oh?” Lewis raises his head from the folder he had picked up. “Tell us about this neighbour.”

James’ mouth quirks. He sets the stapler back into its rightful place beside the desk lamp, and does.


End file.
